"after the explosion, the factory was collapsed..."

Out of all our industry’s hazards we are unfortunately most known for molten metal explosions. Though they rarely occur, we can not forget that they still do occur. Here is a recent incident of a severe explosion:

(Government) News Agency. On the afternoon of October 31, an accident occurred in a furnace in the Jiangsu Province of China, causing three people to be injured and three others were trapped. The search and rescue work is still in progress.

The reporter learned from the Propaganda Department of local Municipal Committee of Jiangsu Province that at about 16:05 on the 31st, an accident occurred in the furnace of an aluminium company. After the on-site search and rescue, three wounded people have been rescued and sent to the hospital, but one of them has unfortunately died. The search and rescue work is continuing.

We pray that the injured workers recover fully. We are sad to report that at least one of the injured workers succumbed to their injuries in the hospital.

What happened? Various news media reports have stated conflicting information from the news media report listed above. Many news reports have stated that molten metal flowed into a casting pit and an explosion occurred. Here is one of those news media stories:

“At 16 o'clock on October 31 about 5 minutes, located in (industrial) in an aluminium company’s melt shop exploded, killing three people dead. According to the investigation, the explosion was caused by the overflow of molten aluminum at a high temperature, which caused an explosion due to the instantaneous vaporization of the cooling water in the deep well.”

How accurate these news media reports are yet to be known.  The destruction is unimaginable and atleast one or more workers have since died from their injuries.

From our experience we feel the reports of “explosion in a furnace” are not entirely accurate because of the damage seen in the videos. Our assumption maybe incorrect. We will know once a government report is released regarding this incident. We do anticipate a report within 6 months and will report its findings. We will add the findings into our safety presentations and discuss what had occurred and how to prevent it our plant visits.

We would recommend for the reader to ask yourself one question “If there was an unexpected release of metal from your furnace(s), where would the metal flow?”

That simple question if asked before countless explosions in the past would have prevented hundreds of millions of financial losses and preserved countless lives that were lost.

Finally, remember to ask your plant the question above.

Please comment.